Suspected honour killing of Dalit man: HC admits appeals of 6 convicted to death

The Madras High Court today admitted appeals filed by six persons, who were awarded death sentence by a lower court in a suspected honour killing case in December last.

A Division Bench, comprising Justice CT Selvam and Justice N Sathishkumar, while admitting the appeals, directed the registry to post them along with the referred trial case sent by the lower court for confirmation of death sentence.

The case relates to the killing of one Sankar, who fell in love with Kausalya, a non-dalit girl, while they were studying in a private engineering college in Pollachi.

They got married in 2015 against the wishes of her parents.

A few months later, a three-member gang hacked Sankar, a dalit, to death in Udumalpet on March 13, 2016. Kausalya suffered injuries in the attack.

The case drew outrage as a video showing the savage attack by the gang which hacked Shankar and Kausalya near a busy road was telecast by TV channels.

The appeals in the high court were filed by Kausalya's father Chinnasamy and five others sentenced to death.

In the case relating to the incident, there were a total of 11 accused, of which three were acquitted by the lower court, including Kausalya's mother and maternal uncle.

Six, including Kausalya's father, were awarded death sentence and one person was awarded double life and another accused five years rigorous imprisonment by the Principal District and Sessions Judge at Udumalpet on December 12 last.

It is against the acquittals the state sought leave of the court on Tuesday to file an appeal, which was granted by the Division Bench.